


In the Whisper of the Wind

by reason_says



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: F/M, Implied Relationships, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-11
Updated: 2011-09-11
Packaged: 2017-10-23 16:18:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/252347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reason_says/pseuds/reason_says
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki is everyone, Loki is everything. Loki is a nuisance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Whisper of the Wind

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** I am making no money from this story or these characters, and am unaffiliated with anyone who does or has or would.  
>  **Notes:** Thanks to Scott (soda_and_capes/feverbeats) for spurring this fic in the first place and for assuring me that it wasn’t horrible.

Loki is all things, Loki is all people. Loki is a stranger brushing against Tony on the street, Loki is Steve staring at Tony in wonderment, Loki is Pepper telling Tony about his schedule for the next day and how it includes bending her over his workbench. Loki has gone too far. Again.

Tony doesn’t know what’s going on. He doesn’t know why Loki has fixated on him, has become determined to sleep with Tony, but he wants it to stop.

“It need not even be me,” Loki whispers, quiet as wind and gone when Tony turns around. “I can be anyone you wish me to be. I could be Pepper…” This time Tony is sure he’s jerked around quickly enough to catch a glimpse, but no. “Captain America…” Surely Loki isn’t just projecting his voice, is he? “Obadiah Stane…” Oh, seriously? What the fuck? “Your father…”

“What is your _problem?_ ” Tony snaps, closing his eyes to resist the temptation to look for the source of the voice. “I don’t want you to be anyone, and _definitely_ not Obie or dad.”

“Noted,” Loki says, and Tony refuses to open his eyes even though he’s certain the evil little pervert is right in front of him. “Perhaps a stranger, then? Someone you have never seen, and never would again?”

“No!” Deep breaths, Tony. Deep breaths. “I don’t want to have sex with you. I don’t say that sentence very often, but trust me, I mean it. It’d be great if you’d leave before I have to have JARVIS shut down your access to one room at a time.”

“As if your robot could stop me.” Tony can _hear_ the smirk, even through Loki’s monotone, and squeezes his eyes closed even more tightly. “But I will leave, Tony Stark, because you asked so graciously. Be it noted that it will take more than that next time.”

Tony feels a rush of air against his face, but doesn’t let himself open his eyes until five minutes later. You never know.

\---

“Thor, your brother wants to sleep with me.” There. Nothing to it. Now if he can just say it to his face, Tony will be all set.

On second thought, maybe he should try to work this out on his own.

\---

It gets worse.

When Tony looks over after some amazingly acrobatic sex with a cute blonde to find that her hair is now black and her bra is now green, he jumps out of bed faster than he’d jumped in.

The next time a woman invites him home he turns her down, shuddering at the dual possibilities: that Loki is this woman, and thus has not given up despite once getting what he wants, or that Loki is _not_ this woman, and thus Tony has passed up sex for no reason.

The next time a man invites him home, Tony pauses just long enough to remember that there’s no tactful way to ask someone if he’s secretly a God without either offending or unduly complimenting him, and in any case no answer would convince him. He turns the man down, and hopes in vain to see a glimmer of green before he turns away.

This has to stop. Tony hasn’t had sex in two weeks, which is an _obscenely_ long time! He hears from Pepper that the team thinks he has some sort of secret hookup going on, that that’s why he hasn’t been seen with anyone lately and is withdrawn from his friends, but he doesn’t even know if she’s really Pepper when she says it, so he continues his distressingly celibate life.

Not that enforced celibacy means much when he wakes up from a wet dream to find Loki’s mouth on his cock.

“Aah!” He scrambles back on the bed, his dick slipping out of Loki’s mouth with a wet pop that shouldn’t be as hot as it is. “What the _fuck_ are you doing?”

Loki’s eyes betray his intent (and Tony knows he must have meant them to do that), so he has time to stand up before his unwanted bedmate slides up to the headboard. He casts about frantically for things to throw, coming up with a comb and his alarm clock. Loki dodges them both without seeming to move at all – not terribly surprising – then becomes Steve and stands up.

“You could have this, Tony. Just the way you’ve always wanted.” He advances, Steve’s costume appearing on his body. “I know you’ve fantasized about Captain America since you were a child. How could you help it? I’m so _strong_ and _good_ and your dad talked about me _all the time_ …” In a blink, the costume disappears. “You can have that now. Just here. Just now. What do you say?”

“OK, I don’t know if _you’re_ crazy or if you think _I_ am, but you seriously need to go away.” Tony has reached his dresser and fumbled into a pair of briefs, so at least he’s not having to cover himself with one hand while gesticulating with the other. “I mean it. Get out. This is seriously messed up.”

“Oh, isn’t it, though? Isn’t that the best part? You know you could never have him normally, so why not take advantage of this?” Loki stops, still Steve, still naked, and gestures to himself. “This is the only way you will ever be worthy of him. Just like this. You’re not _good_ enough for him, Tony. You never will be. But you’re good enough for me.”

His voice slithers through the air and Tony has to stop himself from clapping his hands over his ears. He knows it isn’t true, knows Steve is his friend and considers him a valuable ally, and he doesn’t do that with people he doesn’t deem worthy. Still… he’s _Captain America_. He’s the epitome of all that is good and true and right in the world, and he’s that way by nature rather than design. And what is Tony? A very charming man, true, but also a lecher and someone who maybe drinks way too much from time to time. What if Loki’s right?

What if Steve will never respect him?

“He won’t, you know. And isn’t it tragic that we who are least worthy of love are drawn to the most worthy of our companions? You with your gallant captain, me with my…” Loki’s face, Steve’s face, twists in anger before becoming placid once again. “All I ask is that you consider my offer.

“We have much in common, you and I. Living in the shadow of fathers we could never impress, trailing after our higher-ranked predecessors. We can be to each other what we can never be to others. We can be equal in our unworthiness, and thus can we be made whole.” And then Steve is gone, Loki is gone, and all there is is a green flash in the air and a whisper in Tony’s ear.

“ _Think about it._ ”

Great. Thanks. Like Tony can do anything _but_ think about it, no matter how hard he tries.

He thinks maybe he should muster up the courage to tell Thor what’s going on, since it doesn’t seem likely to stop any time soon, but… he remembers Loki’s expression on Steve’s face. That specific snarl of anger is something he’s only seen once before: when he stood beside Thor as he and Loki faced each other in battle.

Thor might not be of much help here.

\---

“Can’t you just arrest him?”

And _that_ statement is how he knows he’s talking to the real Steve Rogers.

“Fortunately for most of the population, wanting to sleep with me isn’t a crime. I mean, trespassing is, but someone who can, I don’t know, snap his fingers and teleport isn’t likely to be held by a jail.”

“What about ignoring him?”

Tony sighs expansively. “I tried that, and then I woke up to him blowing me. I’ve figured out that ignoring him doesn’t really work, and may in fact make him more determined. I don’t really wanna test that theory.”

Steve, who had coughed when Tony invoked blowjobs, recovers his composure. “Have you tried asking Thor?”

“No!” Tony yelps, and immediately feels bad. “No, Thor has enough to deal with. I’ll… figure out something. I just can’t sleep with anyone until I have, because I’m not gonna give him another chance.”

Steve blinks. “Another?”

“Not the point!” Tony slumps, wishing, not for the first time, that he’d never gone to Afghanistan. Not being a superhero would eliminate a surprising percentage of his problems.

“Is there anything I can do to help you? I don’t think he knows where I live, maybe staying at my place would fend him off.”

Wait a minute. Is that…

“I know it’s not much, but it’d be some protection at least.”

It is. Shit.

“I mean, unless you don’t want to, which would be perfectly understandable--”

“--Stop.”

“What?”

Tony takes a deep breath. “I’m going to be very polite right now, just in case I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure you’re Loki, and you’re flirting with me.” The flush that appears on Steve’s face is interesting, but proves nothing. “If you are, you’re sick and I don’t know why I ever expected better of you. If you’re not, get back to me after this is sorted out. I’m going to lock myself in my room.”

And with that, he does so. If it’s Steve he’ll show himself out, and if its Loki he’d find a way back inside anyway, so there’s no point supervising whoever’s standing in his hallway.

The next day he has all the doorways in his house fitted with iron, and pours a line of salt across the entrance to his bedroom before he goes to sleep. (He briefly considers investing in handcuffs, but ultimately decides that they’d send the right message. _Wrong_ message. The wrong one. Jesus, this is getting to him.)

He wakes up with Loki sitting on his chest.

“Know this, Tony Stark,” Loki begins without preamble and in an upsettingly cheerful tone. “I am no demon, to be warded off by your petty superstitions. My brother is a being of iron and you mortals are beings of salt; how then should either prove a hindrance to me?”

“Honestly-- can you get off me, please?” Loki grins with all his teeth, which Tony takes to mean no. “Fine. It was a gamble that didn’t work. I’m used to those. Seriously, can you-- uff!”

Tony makes a half-hearted effort to sit up, but then Loki is suddenly no longer astride him and he shoots upright instead. He resists the urge to gather the sheets around him, since Loki can probably see through them anyway, and leans back against the headboard. “Seriously, what do you even _want_ from me? At this point I’ll totally have really great sex with you if you’ll just leave me alone and stop pretending to be Steve.”

“Ah, and now the point. My concerns do lie with your captain, though not as you would. Quite the opposite, in fact.” Loki widens his eyes comically, and Tony stifles a groan at the pun. “Yes, precisely. I would lie with you, Tony Stark, and when I have done that I would have you keep Steve away from Thor.”

Tony blinks. “Are those related?”

“Don’t be absurd,” Loki snaps. “Of course they’re not, and now is not the time. You have set to me all manner of challenges and I have met them all, even the insipid one with the salt, and now we shall lie together.”

“The salt wasn’t even a challenge, I was just trying to keep you out!” Tony is way too confused for it too be this early. He likes to save his confusion for mid-afternoon at the earliest. “You just said yourself it wasn’t a real obstacle.”

“Exactly. And yet even for an ant it was no easy job to navigate the grains, so it was a task well-designed.”

Tony stares. “An ant?”

“Yes. Did you really think becoming an ant was beyond my power? I crawled beneath your ludicrous iron door and between the grains of salt, just to make sport of your otherwise insulting measure.”

“My-- it wasn’t a _measure,_ what the hell! It was a gamble! An off-chance!”

“And why should I not devise a challenge for myself, since yours have been so paltry?”

“There’s really no arguing with you, is there?”

“On the contrary, there’s seldom anything _but_ arguing with me. What there isn’t, at least often, is winning.” Loki’s eyes narrow. “I suggest you give in.”

“Fine, whatever.” Tony raises his hands in surrender. “Can you at least pretend not to be looking while I get dressed? I’d like to get the paperwork settled.”

“Of course.” Loki makes a show of turning around, but turns back before Tony is finished buttoning up his shirt. “Where shall we settle your paperwork? Furthermore, what will it say? I presume some sort of exchange, but of what nature?”

“Mainly of the nature of you leaving me alone once we’ve done this, but a few other things. Come on, out here.”

Tony leads Loki out to the dining room – no sense giving him easy access to the office – and grabs a pad of paper from a drawer. He speaks as he writes:

“Item one: once we do this, you leave me alone.

“Item two: once we do this, you stop pretending to be Steve.

“Item three: once we do this, I keep Steve away from Thor. You mean physically, emotionally, what? ‘Cause we’re all on the same team now, and we don’t exactly fight in a line.”

“Oh, emotionally will do. Thor might be the kind for meaningless flings, but your captain doesn’t seem to be. I imagine a relationship with you will keep him safely away from my brother.”

“You keep _saying_ shit like that. You do know it’s not that easy, right? All I even have on that score is a conversation with _you_. By the way, inviting me over? Not the most subtle.”

Loki laughs delightedly. “Good, so you did think that was me! I’d hoped you would. Sadly, I was called away before your conversation ended.”

Tony is very quiet. “You sack of shit.”

“I beg your pardon?” Loki widens his eyes in what would look like sincerity on anyone else.

“You mean that was really him?”

“Well, of course. Who else would have had the charming notion of arresting me? By the way, I don’t recommend trying that one. It doesn’t stick.”

“You…” Tony cuts himself off before he gets into a shouting match with someone who could probably turn him into a bug. “Fine. Whatever. It’s not the first time I’ve groveled, and it won’t be the last. Let’s get this over with so I can talk to him.”

“That’s more like it! You know, pragmatism is a very attractive quality in small doses. You should cultivate that.”

“Shut up.”

\---

In the end, they settle on two points:

1) This will be the end of their nonprofessional interactions

and

2) Tony will work to keep Steve away from Thor as long as Loki doesn’t impersonate Steve again. Ever. In any context.

These two stipulations satisfy both of them, though Tony feels there should be some sort of failsafe. He’s not exactly gonna push Steve towards Thor no matter what, so it’d be nice if he could ban Loki from looking like him. Do the Norse have geases? Is that even the plural of geas? This one, he really might have to ask Thor about.

He half expects the paper to burst into flame the second Loki finishes signing it, but it just sits there on the table between them. He’s not sure what to do next.

“Very well then, how should we do this?” Loki stands up and _wow_ , he is just unreasonably tall.

“I don’t know, you tell me. I mean, you’ve already tricked me into fucking you once, you wanna be a man this time?”

“Excellent, a reversal. Though in this world your physiology doesn’t vary, so not as total a reversal as might be appropriate.” Loki sighs. “Still, some things can’t be helped.”

“Great, so you can fuck _me_ this time.”

Loki glances at him. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t do that.”

“Of course you don’t,” Tony mutters. “What do you suggest, then?”

“I thought my point was obvious. Last time, you bedded me as a woman. This time, bed me as a man.”

“No, I don’t-- ‘Bed you’? Seriously, why do you even talk like that?”

“Because it frustrates you. Now, how do you propose we solve our little dilemma?”

Tony sighs. “I don’t know, you have a normal female form, right? With the black hair and the, you know, low-cut dress?”

“Of course.” Suddenly Loki is a woman, the same one Tony’s seen in battle a few times, the same one he saw in his bed when she let her… what, glamour? Shapeshifting or whatever down. He hates to admit it, but she’s not unattractive. This might work.

\---

Not to put too fine a point on it, everything goes successfully. Tony and Loki promise not to tell anyone what happened, though Loki is almost certainly lying. It’s what she does, after all, and what would be the fun of seducing Tony Stark without telling her brother of the deal? Steve will be otherwise occupied now, and that’s all that matters.

\---

“What I don’t understand is why he thought Thor and I would get together in the first place.”

“Hey, I don’t get it either, but who knows how Gods work? I’m just glad he went away when I promised to keep you away from him.” Tony looks up at Steve from where he’s nestled next to him on the couch. “You’re not gonna make that too hard, are you?”

Steve kisses the top of Tony’s head. “Not unless you want me to make an inappropriate joke, no.”


End file.
